Housesitting!

I'm fairly certain that time warps when I'm blogging. I write a post, leave the computer, and WHOOSH! It's two weeks since my last post!

That being said, time has also warped me into housesitting for a couple from my church. DH and I have been having a blast eating other people's food and watching other people's television! ... And watching their poodle. Well, something had to be less than perfect.

I fixed our Christmas dinner here: a sumptuous feast of mashed potatoes, veggies, rolls, and roast duck. I had never made duck before, so I was pleased to say that it turned out all right! But holey moley!!! It is such RICH meat! I ate a little drumstick, and was good for the rest of the week. Now we have a ton of duck sitting in the fridge that I need to use up somehow. Any ideas?

All this talk of food is making my stomach turn a little. I've been having bouts of queasiness for the past few weeks.... no reason in particular. *wink wink*

Christmas Shopping Rant

Today, Adam and I are going to go Christmas shopping.

*whimper*

I am very bad at gift-giving. You've heard about the Five Love Languages? "Gifts" is the hands-down, absolute lowest love language for me. It barely comes on the radar. I couldn't care much less about having a stack of presents under the tree for myself (which will be a good thing this year, because we're broke, lol), and while I appreciate the thoughtfulness and generosity of the giver, I have a hard time attaching great significance to presents. So Christmas shopping is a torturous affair for me.

This is especially true because I have a couple particularly difficult people to shop for. Actually, my mom is sort of easy to shop for, because she has all sorts of likes: lotions, candles, snowmen, quilting, bird-watching. But there are only so many bottles of lotion and candles that a woman can take, you know?? The other one is a sibling-in-law, who, as far as I can tell, already has everything. Hmmm. There needs to be a venue that sells things only for people that already have everything. Oh wait, that's called SkyMall.

Well, it's time to stop complaining and start getting serious about this gift thing. Wish me luck!

Works For Me Wednesday: Take Some Stress Out of Gifting

WARNING TO MY RELATIVES: Don't read this one, or you will know what you're getting for Christmas!

I have a lot of family members. I'm one of five kids, and my husband is one of six. Thankfully, his side does a drawing for Christmas, so each person only has to get a present for two other family members. But even then, this still amounts to a lot of gifts!

With so many people to give gifts to, I decided to simplify this year, and....

Give everyone the same thing.

This year, I'm making everyone aprons, but they're in a variety of patterns and designs. My sisters and female in-laws are getting cute, cute aprons, and my brothers are getting MAN-aprons, AKA tool belts. It was amazing how easy it was to gather all the materials needed! After finding the patterns I wanted (hint: eBay has some great deals on brand-name patterns!) it took just one evening of calculating yardages and taking a trip to Hobby Lobby to get me set.

This also applies to smaller gifts for people outside the immediate family. I'm thinking specifically of ornaments, because those are such great little gifts! DH and I are going to a church ornament-exchange party next week, but we are armed and ready, because I am mass-producing these puppies.

Thank you for stopping by! You can find oodles of other great tips at We Are THAT Family!